Getting hurt at La Casina restaurant by the temp waitress

[Denise2026]

Dear Madam,

I'm Mathis, director of La Casina. First of all thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.

We are truly sorry that your daughter was upset by the incident that occurred during your dinner. Seeing a child upset is never pleasant, and we fully understand that this event may have caused you concern as parents.

However, we would like to clarify a few points. The incident in question was unfortunately an accident. While clearing the table, a glass broke and a shard struck your daughter’s leg. As soon as we noticed her distress and discomfort, we came to speak with you to ensure she was okay and to offer our apologies.
In an effort to resolve the situation, I checked in with you regularly throughout the evening. At that time, and after sharing a digestif together, we felt that the incident, though regrettable, had been understood as an accident and that everything was back to normal.

We are, however, distressed by certain statements regarding members of our team. Behind every service are women and men who work with dedication, passion, and kindness. To publicly call them out personally seems particularly unfair to us, especially since they did everything in their power to handle the situation with care and respect.

Since we opened, we have had the pleasure of welcoming guests from all over the world, including many loyal visitors who return every season. We strive every day to offer everyone the same warm welcome, regardless of where they come from, and without the tips you mentioned being our goal.
We sincerely hope your daughter is doing well today, and we wish you and your family all the best for the future.
Warm regards,
The La Casina Team​

Dear Mathis,
Thank you for remembering the accident! I thought you wouldn't! You didn't come to me, you mostly spoke with my other daughter's boyfriend who was a St. Barth resident. You told him that the waitress doesn't work there and that was an accident, like I am supposed to accommodate your accidents at my expense! Your way of handling this was beyond humane, forget about being a professional. I was embarrassed by your attitude. I felt like being in another world. Everyone was in such a rush in that loud, crazy working atmosphere that you and your girlfriend waitress were too busy to care.. Like "so what?" was an accident, I can't do anything about! We perfectly understand your attitude, only money matters, but guess what? We will spend our money elsewhere! And I will speak to Mimi about, she should check the camera and draw her own conclusion. If I were you I wouldn't use the title of director, you don't deserve it!!

 

[didier]

My final thoughts on this incident.....I love La Casina and will definitely keep going there, the food is outstanding and the service for the most part is very good. I gave my opinion earlier and that is what I would have done.....to each their own. the food, the ambiance of La Casina is almost as good as going to the old hideaway.

My favs: Eddy's, Le Repaire, La Casina in that order

 

[Amery]

We too have enjoyed La Casina the few times we have dined since it opened. I agree with Didier’s assessment. Accidents happen; how they are handled is telling on both sides. In my opinion such situations are best handled privately.

 

[cassidain]

In my opinion such situations are best handled privately.

+1

 

[Leon]

We too have enjoyed La Casina the few times we have dined since it opened. I agree with Didier’s assessment. Accidents happen; how they are handled is telling on both sides. In my opinion such situations are best handled private

To the "accidents happen", I might be wrong but I do not recall seeing or reading about, or, God forbid, being a party in the restaurant accident in St Barth where a child was injured by a flying glass chards and was bleeding. If I would be an owner I would critically investigate, why I was not informed about the accident where patron, especially a child, was injured, not just say "I was away", with all that communication technology that exists. Also, maybe to look into the staff training that will prevent accidents like this from happening again and report about that here? As for "handling privately", I am all for that, but apparently in this case it was not possible. Maybe another reason to improve the staff, and management training?

 

[Amery]

Simply put, as Dennis pointed out, there are two sides to every story.
Public shaming rarely benefits either party.

 

[Leon]

Simply put, as Dennis pointed out, there are two sides to every story.
Public shaming rarely benefits either party.

I agree that the victims might be understandably too subjective in their side of the story in the heat of the moment, but we, in US, at least, expect more professional and proactive reaction from the other side, both on the spot and in the post-fact comments.

 

[didier]

My father owned 3 restaurants at the same time when I was growing up. I had to work for him in one of the restaurants during the summer when I was 13 ( no pay, all the food I could eat..lol). when I was growing up, you did what your parents told you to do, no ifs ands or buts. I wanted to spend the summer with my friends, but that was not in the cards.

that being said, my father always said the restaurant business depends on good customer feedback. If someone was not happy with their meal, my father's policy was to offer the customer something else, if they did not want anything else, then their meal was free. the success of his restaurants were based on top quality food and service.

He also had a policy that if someone came in hungry and did not have much money, we gave them a sandwich and something to drink on the house.

I remember 2 hippie like teenagers came in off the road from hitch hiking. they said to us that they had traveled from california ( we were in virginia at the time) and were running out of money, they ordered a glass of water and a sandwich which they shared. I told my father and he came out and spoke with the boys, and said order whatever you want, its on the house and here is a couple of bucks for you, enjoy your adventure guys, life is short.

accidents happen, thats why we have car insurance etc. the proper thing to do in this situation was for the restaurant which was at fault, the child did get hurt., was to offer the meal free to mother and child. Its the right thing to do and its still not too late to do the right thing.

the restaurant needs to own this accident and in turn compensate the diner, if they don't, most likely people who read this thread may decide to skip the place, and go elsewhere. as they say good advertisements will reach a lot of people, bad press will travel around the world.

 

[Risa]

People post publicly when they feel helpless about getting some kind of resolution privately. A parent saw their child hurt. End of story. Doesn't matter whether the food was good - or even exemplary, doesn't matter that it was an accident, doesn't matter that the waitress was the manager's girlfriend, doesn't matter that the staff is generally well trained, doesn't matter that the restaurant was busy, doesn't matter that the owner was away. The child was crying and the parent is hurting. The image of her child crying is all she cares about. Understanding that simple fact, in the moment, and responding to it, without any other caveats or explanations would have made all of this so much better. The next best thing would have been recognition of that afterwards, again, without caveats. Sure, maybe comping the dinner would have helped. Maybe immediately bringing some ice cream or something for the child would have helped. But what the family needed was a moment of time, care, compassion, and sincere apology - nothing else. Just a moment of stopping everything.

We all may have learned something here about empathy.

Denise, I'm so sorry this happened to you and your daughter. I hope you were able to enjoy the rest of your vacation.

 

[jamiem4]

I'm only going to add to this thread for a few reasons. I worked on an ambulance as an EMT throughout college (it paid well and I was headed to medical school...) First aid/first responder training to this day has come in handy on this island, especially with the scooter accidents. We always keep a full first-aid kit in both of our cars. In fact, I just bought a new one because we used up some bandages witnessing a head-on scooter accident in Vitet about a month ago and stopped to help the kids while they waited for the ambulance. Pulling out chard(s) of glass or glass pieces and seeing a child bleeding, or even minor hits on child's head should be immediately addressed. These types of what we think are minor injuries should always be addressed by the restaurant management. All restaurants should at least have a first-aid kit and at least immediately offer it. Perhaps that is what happened here but I didn't read that. A crying child with blood is always distressing, especially to the child, a mom and dad, and other patrons.

I will tell you my recent experience at Nikki Beach. We were celebrating a very special 70th birthday! Believe it or not, eight friends flew in for this surprise and that was the venue. We are not big spenders at all at Nikki Beach, and we go when our friends have special occasions and fly to SBH, etc. Anyway, at this birthday, we were seated and ordered drinks. I ordered a white sangria (thankfully not the red one.) The waiter was also rushing and unfortunately my white sangria glass slipped from his hands, spilled all over me, and the glass broke. I have to say they are a well-oiled machine quite used to drinks spilling however there were apologies everywhere, they immediately changed my chair, cleaned the table, etc etc. I was asked over and over again if I was OK (I had no cuts at all), and our waitress (Fanny) asked if I wanted Nikki to clean my dress. I declined - really it was not a big deal at all. Then, my meal, drink, my husband's meal and drink were removed from the bill. I smelled like a fruity drink all afternoon but it was a nice gesture. We also noticed they removed the birthday cake as well from the bill. I also received a follow-up call the next day....and I will reiterate, we are not big spenders of anything at Nikki Beach and we sometimes only order water to drink with appetizers. That was just a nice example and we are really nobodies there. I'm sure Nikki is also used to and prepared for a lot more accidents but still...

Lastly, the tip issue on the machines is well addressed by Dennis and others. I can say at Mamo our waiter bypasses the screen for us. If we want to add a tip to a card, we will say so ahead of time (if service is excellent but we are out of cash!). At Mamo, our server is wonderful and so is the service so we feel inclined to compensate accordingly. I usually deal with the tip issue with cash and buzz right past the pre-set screen some locations use. Some of the places that know us, similar to Dennis, also know what our position is regarding tipping and how to handle 'the machine.'

This post isn't intended to take sides or add fuel to the debate/issue. It is just my experience with the topics and I think fast responding good customer service (and first-aid, if needed) is so important as is calming a child who is stressed and crying.